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Stay Curious.
Make the most of your college experience.
Jeff Hulett
Curator, The Curiosity Vine
Stay Curious.
The Curiosity Vine is an idea incubator.
Our contributors have experience and interest in a variety of high-impact topics, such as science, technology, conservation, mathematics, data science, public policy, economics, and others. Our objective is to promote early-stage ideas, enable idea collaboration, and test idea purchase.
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TCV platform is curated by Jeff Hulett.
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Join our team - become a TCV contributor!
Learn about why you should join The Curiosity Vine.
TCV's ideas are used to provide seminars, write books, build businesses, and especially to help people.
So take a look around the site, feel free to ask or answer your own questions, and enjoy your own curiosity exploration!
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Featured Posts
Economics Personality: An Evolutionary Process
My Economics Personality I study and "do" economics all the time. But have you ever stepped back and thought about your economics personality? For me, it has been evolving throughout my life. When I was younger, I would have identified much more with economists like John Maynard Keynes or Paul Samuelson—focusing on centralized equilibrium models, state intervention, and macroeconomic levers. Today, my economic personality has evolved toward liberty, spontaneous order, and rea
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Demystifying Backpropagation: The 300-Year-Old Calculus Rule Powering Modern AI
Modern artificial intelligence systems rely on an underlying algorithm to learn: Backpropagation. Whether predicting text, recognizing images, or translating languages, neural networks depend on this universal mechanism. The core mathematical mechanism behind backpropagation is not a recent invention. The algorithm relies on a calculus rule formulated by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1676: the chain rule. To understand how modern AI works, we examine how this centuries-old mat
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Bridging the AI Divide: Moving Higher Education from Hesitation to Integration
"If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they will rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks." — Socrates (in Plato's Phaedrus) Educators have long questioned how new tools alter human cognition. Socrates was not warning against algorithms, but the newest technology of his era: the written word. New classroom technologies seld
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Making the Invisible Hand Visible: How Choice Architecture Operationalizes Economics
The Invisible Hand is an observation of our human nature. Adam Smith studied how people naturally operate within social settings. He then applied those behavioral insights to explain how societies generate lasting wealth. Long-term empirical trends support his core insights. Over the past two centuries, global economic data reveals unprecedented rises in real gross domestic product per capita alongside dramatic increases in global life expectancy. In 1776, Adam Smith publishe
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Treasury Rates Update: February 5th, 2026
In the wake of the Federal Reserve's recent decision to hold rates steady, the Treasury market has spent the first week of February in a state of modest retracement. As an economist who has tracked these cycles for decades, I view this week’s downward drift in yields not as a reversal of the broader trend, but as a tactical pause as the market digests the Fed's stance. The benchmark 10-year Treasury rate declined by 3 basis points (bp) this week, contributing to a total decre
Jeff Hulett
Feb 71 min read
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Mortgage Rates Update: February 5th, 2026
As we move into early February, the mortgage market continues to display a high degree of technical resistance. For the week ending February 5, 2026, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose by 1 basis point to 6.11 percent. This marginal increase occurred even as the benchmark 10 Year Treasury rate fell by 3 basis points to 4.21 percent. In my professional assessment, the divergence between primary and secondary market yields is the primary story this week. When mortgage rates r
Jeff Hulett
Feb 71 min read
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Navigating the Unseen: Math Intuition and the Power of Analogy
Unlocking the Fourth Dimension of Wealth Building a robust financial future requires more than just basic arithmetic; it demands a shift in how we perceive the world. To master complex systems, one must develop mathematical intuition, the ability to sense and navigate patterns that exist beyond immediate physical perception. We will explore the concept through the lens of a remarkable, short book titled Flatland , written by Edwin Abbott. Although published in 1884, Abbott's
Jeff Hulett
Feb 73 min read
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The Intentional Gardener: Helping Your Children Navigate the Hidden Laws of Behavioral Genetics
Parenting often feels overwhelming. We want the best for our children, yet we constantly worry about the uncertainties of a complex world. Self-doubt often creeps in as we wonder if our choices provide enough of a foundation for their future. As a behavioral economist, I often tell my students and clients life resembles a game of poker more than a game of chess. Chess displays every piece and every move clearly. Poker—and life—deals a hand you did not choose, requiring high-s
Jeff Hulett
Feb 58 min read
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The Architecture of Agency: How Evolution Uses Information to Override Physics
What if everything you've ever chosen—your job, your relationships, your values—was never really your choice? Neuroscientists and philosophers increasingly argue that free will is an illusion—your decisions pre-programmed by genetics, childhood, and context. Yet our lived experience insists otherwise. We feel we choose, and society expects us to act accordingly. So which is it? Do we truly have agency—or are we just playing out a script? This article suggests we are asking t
Jeff Hulett
Feb 319 min read
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Treasury Rates Update: January 29th, 2026
The U.S. Treasury market remained focused on the Federal Reserve this week as the central bank held rates steady during its January 28th meeting. As an economist who has navigated many cycles, I find the resulting yield curve behavior particularly telling of a market anticipating a shift toward normalization despite ongoing short-term inversions. For the week, the 10-year Treasury rate showed zero change, maintaining its position after a 9bp climb over the preceding 14 days.
Jeff Hulett
Jan 311 min read
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Mortgage Rates Update: January 29th, 2026
The final week of January 2026 brought a slight shift in the mortgage landscape, characterized by a minor decoupling between primary rates and benchmark yields. For the week ending January 29, 2026, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate edged up by 1 basis point to settle at 6.10 percent. This incremental rise occurred despite a 2 basis point decline in the 10 Year Treasury rate, which fell to 4.24 percent. As an experienced economist, I look closely at these diverging movements. W
Jeff Hulett
Jan 311 min read
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America's Mega Forces - Making the most in a time of change
In recent years, the United States has seen a significant intensification of immigration enforcement. According to data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). There are a couple mega forces uniquely playing out in the United States. What are they and how do we adapt?
Jeff Hulett
Jan 2718 min read
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